Slant
by SwiftKick
Summary: Deidara "acquires" the best medic to heal Itachi, as per Pain's orders. Sakura finds that being held captive doesn't really agree with her. Rewrite&Re-post. [BAMF Sakura, as always][Canon Divergent, too]
1. The Target

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

 **Author's note:** Dark, violent, psychological. Occasionally funny. Shiptease and emotionally-charged interactions abound but this isn't a romance fic (the goal isn't to get characters together...but it could happen who knows). No matter when you are reading this fic, chapter reviews are always welcome! Share your thoughts!

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o o o

Deidara had set the mission up as a trap.

An ageing Grass Lord, conveniently located near the border of Rain, had months ago come down with an undiagnosed illness. Learning as much, Deidara had then manipulated the situation to his favour, getting information to the staff and handlers about a possible route for a cure, all the while staying in the shadows. A few carefully placed words to the right people, and the Grass Lord eventually requested help from the Hokage. He had asked for her apprentice with the recently acquired knowledge that the personal student of the Fifth would be able to cure him. And if the pathetic situation hadn't been enough, then the man's money offered had surely persuaded the Leaf to accept.

The apprentice was something else. She never stopped, didn't slow, she had an inhuman drive pushing her every action to a level of efficiency and speed that seldom few could ever hope to emulate. The time line for the mission had been estimated at two weeks but she had set about curing the man in a matter of days before she was off again to return to Fire Country. And when a group of mercenaries suddenly attacked her and her three-man escort? Well, she hadn't shown any nervousness or hesitation in dealing with them either. She released that constantly churning power in artfully executed flourishes – and Deidara liked that in a person.

With her calm façade and hard eyes, she was a sight to watch while in combat... Which happened to be exactly what Deidara was doing at the moment.

"Oou…" he sympathised as the medic-nin dug a kunai into the gut of one of the rogue mercenaries.

Deidara, when hiring the mercenaries, had made sure the group was strong enough to take out the Leaf escorts, but not so overwhelming that they'd kill the apprentice. In any case, they had been given strict orders to dispatch the others before even touching her. Deidara was around only to collect her once she was incapacitated. He wasn't to be seen. Leader didn't particularly wish for Akatsuki to be associated with Haruno Sakura's disappearance.

Below Deidara in the clearing another Leaf nin was down, and now it was just his target left standing. She was outnumbered three to one, but had already taken down six enemy combatants on her own, so he had some confidence she would come out the victor in the battle.

The mercenaries hadn't caught onto their situation so much. One of the men made a comment to the girl and brandished his blade in a blatant and crude manner.

Deidara almost smiled. Couldn't they see they were just barely fighting on even ground?

Sure, percentage wise, the individual hired nin had more chakra remaining than she – since the fighting had been divvied between so many people at first – but they were clearly inferior when it came to brains and skill. It was obvious.

But the remarks from the three continued. Deidara could see the kunoichi wasn't affected by what they were saying, but he would bet that she was growing impatient by the way her eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed.

She tapped her left foot and the ground in front of her opened up fast enough that the man currently speaking was cut off mid-sentence and swallowed whole into the fissure. The other two mercenaries managed to dart away, seemingly having decided that long-range would be the best way to fight her.

Shuriken went past the kunoichi's head as she ducked to avoid them. Deidara watched as she flitted around projectiles while throwing senbon needles of her own. She was careful – though not careful enough. One of the men had managed to get behind her and drove her face first into a tree before slamming his body fully against hers, immobilising her. The man secured her wrists with one hand while allowing the other to travel down her side. The second remaining mercenary had revealed herself and was spewing more creative suggestions from where she stood a few feet behind her companion.

Deidara's brow creased as he watched.

What was the girl's strategy here?

 _Ah, there we go_ , he thought with a satisfied twist of his lips. The girl pinned to the tree dispersed abruptly into a cloud of dust – an earth-formed clone. He had never seen her make the hand seals. The debris hanging in the air hadn't cleared by the time both mercenaries were down, chakra enhanced hits felling them in quick succession.

And such hits, too! A sight to watch, really.

The kunoichi stood still for a moment, shoulders hunched and breathing laboured as she hovered over the bodies, and Deidara wondered if she were about to collapse. She surprised him when she turned and made her way to the side of one of the Leaf nin. He watched her check the other kunoichi's pulse and listen for a heartbeat. A lost cause. She closed the woman's wide open eyes before she moved on to another body.

The second nin, a middle-aged man, was also dead. His eyes were already shut, so she didn't linger at his side, set about locating the final Leaf instead. This one was still breathing, Deidara gathered, as the girl started channelling chakra into the most life-threatening wound, one that couldn't wait for treatment or withstand movement.

She really must have been clever with her chakra in order to have enough energy to stitch up the long, jagged gash as neatly and precisely as she did. But she wasn't invincible. She had just enough reserves left to hastily patch up the rest of his debilitating cuts and punctures. Only at the point of exhausting herself did she finally step away to lean on a nearby tree.

She started to slump over, eyes going shut and expression slack, and Deidara didn't wait for her knees to hit the ground before he was down there, standing at her side.

Up close, she wasn't nearly as impressive.

"You're a shorty, yeah," he said.

She shouldn't have been so young and small – not with the way she rendered the ground asunder. Although, perhaps her plum sweet looks in contrast to her explosive skills leant to her charm.

Deidara sucked his teeth, thoughtful. She didn't look quite so sweet at the moment. From a distance he hadn't been able to appreciate the amount of scratches and developing bruises she had acquired, all the dents from heavy hits. She was roughed up.

She carried it well, though.

Her eyes were closed and it seemed she was unaware of his arrival and scrutiny, if not all together passed out. That was fine with him. All the easier to dose her with a sedative. As she fell more slack, he took her with one arm around the shoulders first and then caught the back of her knees with his other. She was heavier than he expected and somehow bonier, too, and he struggled for a moment to arrange her comfortably against his body.

And where his former partner had failed – Deidara succeeded and fled into the canopy with the defeated Apprentice to the Fifth.

He glanced down at the girl, feeling slightly apologetic over the fact the other Leaf nin she had spent so much energy healing was going to die any way. To her and to himself, he said, "can't be helped, yeah. That's our life as shinobi. And like we'd have it any other way! Way too boring, yeah."

Expectedly enough, she didn't reply.

o o o

Her name was Haruno Sakura. She was a Leaf Chuunin. She had defeated Akasuna no Sasori. She had short, choppy hair and slept with her mouth just a little ajar. She was currently on his bed.

It wasn't really _his_ bed, though, but where Deidara would temporarily stay during the nights that brought him to this one of the many Akatsuki bunkers. Deidara still liked how she looked in it, even with that mint green chakra surrounding her like a blanket as she unconsciously sought to treat her injuries. Seriously, she was _unconscious._

"Unnatural, yeah. Doing that while asleep," Deidara griped, or maybe marvelled, from where he stood by his door jamb.

She'd been out for half a day and it seemed she was slowly coming back around. Some time ago her deep sleep ' _must rest body and mind completely_ ' cycle had transitioned to one where she was dreaming – he could tell from her shift in breathing and by the way her eyes twitched beneath her eyelids. She made a noise and roused enough from her sleep to stretch her arms and rearrange herself more comfortably into his comforter and pillows.

 _Figures Uchiha gets the personal medic,_ he thought with a pout.

Uchiha. He was the reason behind Deidara's mission in getting the kunoichi.

He didn't really believe himself capable of jealousy, and he would _never_ admit to envying Uchiha, but Deidara was a bit unhappy with the fact that it was Kakuzu and not Sakura that would be tending to his wounds. Those veins that the other man used to stitch up his arms were oil slick (and kinda super unpleasant) compared to the gentle healing chakra that the girl used. Well, he imagined her chakra would be warm and gentle. Just like the sunlight filtered through the summer leaves.

Straightening out of his leaning posture, Deidara walked to the edge of his bed, considered the kunoichi for a moment. The medic for Uchiha lying on his bed.

He thought that there was always something entertaining about disturbing calm waters.

Deidara settled himself next to the girl, could tell by the slight wrinkling of her nose that she had sensed him, and he wasn't at all surprised when her hand shot out to grasp his wrist just as he was about to touch her shoulder.

Her eyes blinked open and her disorientation was obvious as her gaze went to his face. Her grip on his wrist remained firm as she studied him.

Deidara smirked as he watched her try to right her confusion. He could almost see the calculations ticking in her head.

She looked like she was searching for something to say, and she settled on a rather uncouth word.

Deciding to reclaim his arm before she could crush it with her strength, he moved to the other side of the room just as she did the same to the opposing stone wall. He noticed that her first instinct wasn't to attack, but to get her bearings and as much understanding about the situation before coming up with an offensive plan. She had her eyes locked with his as her hands sought for her weapons. They were gone. He had searched her for anything she could use to help her escape or in a confrontation before bringing her in. Her cheeks warmed slightly, and he supposed she had discovered that he had confiscated the wire lining her chest binder and undergarments.

" _Louse,"_ he thought he heard her mumble. He sniffed, haughty, _as if_.

She continued, this time loud enough for him to hear clearly, "I won't be doing you any favours. No pleading, no helpless captive act, and no other ...dishonourable interactions, either."

She hesitated at the last thing, and Deidara found it amusing that she was so confident to make such unyielding statements while still being shy about the subject matter.

"Oh? Are you making the rules, yeah?"

She was stalling, actually, and he knew that.

They both realised how a fight in the room would play out: he couldn't use his explosives easily in closed quarters, and she couldn't bring down the walls without knowing where the room was located (shame if it were underground and she inadvertently caused a lethal cave-in). It would be determined by taijutsu, with one of them armed with enhanced strength and the other with sharp, pointy weapons.

She crouched into a fighting stance, having weighed her options and going with the fight-and-escape course of action. She probably realised the odds were against her, and he wondered if she'd also inherited Lady Tsunade's infamously awful gambling skills.

They moved at the same time, meeting at the end of his bed. She drove a fist at his face and he dropped to avoid it, falling into a kick meant to sweep her legs out from under her. He missed and allowed the swinging momentum to turn his back to her. Her leg came down while he was still crouched over, but he deflected it with his elbow (which stung a lot more than it should have, he thought) and turned his body around with his left arm curled in an uppercut. He was under her guard and the hit connected with the right-side of her rib cage. She curled around his fist, coughing out a pained sound.

Deidara was already smiling when he saw her knee moving straight to his face. The smirk melted off as he cocked his head to side, but her knee still managed to brush his jaw.

 _Of course_ , he thought, of course she could summon chakra to her _knees_. The slight contact was enough to send him reeling backwards, and he twisted awkwardly into a roll before pushing himself upright once again.

She followed him and he knew one more graze would be enough to take him out.

Screw taijutsu, tiny little spider bomb it was. He sent out several.

" _Ah_ – what the _hell – ?_ " as she retreated back from the blasts that served more as flash bangs than anything mortally wounding.

The distance was restored between them, and Deidara took some time to poke at his jaw while he kept his eyes on the girl.

She was low on chakra, panting like a cornered animal and keeping her stance too loose. With all the fighting and healing she had done in the past few days, there was no way she could last much longer. He'd been gathering information on her and observing her for some time, and knew the reserves her body held. Her techniques were executed with the perfect amount of energy needed, and she was aware of her limitations, which meant she always fought in the most efficient manner.

She could only last for so long before her stamina was exhausted.

"Are you going to tell me why I'm being held by Akatsuki or what?" She asked, still breathing heavily.

More stalling.

Despite how much his jaw hurt him, Deidara answered, "what makes you think it's Akatsuki's orders, yeah? Maybe I just wanted some company."

The girl chewed her lip to keep at bay a sardonic smile.

"You would have to kidnap a girl to get some company – " she said, and which, admittedly, he had walked into, but he still blew air at the accusation. "Although you don't seem the type to get lonely and then recklessly risk his neck over a high-profile target such as myself."

"Oh, 'high profile?' Who are you, again?" Deidara baited, innocently allowing his eyes to trace the lines of her face as if he didn't know them.

"This is how your organization is operating now," she said with a question in her tone. "Can't get the jinchuuriki so you're going after their acquaintances? Holding me as some sort of hostage, asking a ransom?"

She was fishing for information, but she had undervalued herself. Completely off the mark and yet Deidara could see why. Knowing who her team mates were, it was all too plausible that she felt lesser in comparison, that she was stubbornly ignorant of her own independent significance.

"You're so sharp, yeah, but wrong. I'm the kind of guy who likes risks. Maybe I don't mind pissing some people off if I thought it were worth it."

She was sceptical of his reasoning, too secure in her own deductions, and missed his slip entirely. She breathed out a dismissive laugh. "Yeah, maybe you're just interested in some revenge for _Danna_."

Her nonchalance, her flippant words and invitation, were frustrating ...and also welcomed. Deidara put some of his speed to good use and pushed the kunoichi face-first into the stone wall. He gripped both her wrists in his left hand and secured one of her legs by entangling it with his own. He had knocked the wind out of her and she choked dryly for a minute before finally inhaling sharply.

"Are you testing me, yeah? You should rethink that, kunoichi."

Was it her insecurity over her strength that led her to act brashly? Or was it the disappointment in herself about being caught?

Deidara pressed against her, lining their bodies in a way he liked.

She went still and stiff and he realised she was thinking of how the mercenary from the day before had put her clone into a very similar position. It might not have been her body physically, but the experience was imprinted in her mind. She knew what that man had said then and she couldn't be certain Deidara wasn't thinking along the same lines now.

He wasn't thinking quite the same thing.

No, he had a task to give to the medic-nin.

Deidara leaned in closer to speak. "You've been ordered to heal Uchiha. You'll do as instructed without resistance."

There wasn't an immediate response, and he wondered, secretly, quietly, if her insides likewise were twisting from how he held her.

When she spoke, her voice wasn't as breathy and uncertain as he would have liked. "I refuse. Find someone else to heal his eyes."

His eyes?

Deidara's confusion distracted him and for a second his grip loosened.

She thrashed in his weakness and wrenched herself free. It was a wide hit she threw for his throat, aiming for his windpipe but missing. The blow was a glance and without power, and she then went for fleeing instead of fighting.

He was faster than her, though.

Grabbing her elbow as she reached the door, Deidara tossed her back onto the bed and followed her, pining her down in a full mount. Knees holding her legs still and hands biting into her wrists, Deidara hovered over her and frowned.

She was jerking her shoulders from side to side, trying to get her arms free unsuccessfully, and he followed the movements with his eyes. She was both attempting to escape his hold and apparently trying to sink into the mattress at the same time. Wanting to avoid more contact with him, he thought.

"I cannot believe this," she hissed to herself. Repeating again, more vehemently, " _louse_ , absolute louse."

She closed her eyes tightly – either to block out pain or the sight of him above her.

Despite his confusion about her comment regarding Uchiha's eyes, Deidara focused more on her reactions and name calling just then.

"Is that why you blushed earlier, yeah? All that stammering because you're afraid of this?" He rolled the weight on his hips into her a little more and watched her conflicted, fleeting expressions.

Didn't Konoha train their shinobi for this sort of thing?

Take it from them early like Iwa did for him?

Her eyes opened and she stared hard into his own. "I swear to you, whatever torture you do to me I will return it ten fold. Touch me and you will never _touch_ another thing again. I will make you into _dust_."

If he were honest, that was sort of an exciting promise on her part. It was fun. He might let her hit him again.

"Who's saying anything about torture, yeah?" Deidara raised his eyebrows, let his mouth lift a little in a smirk. "You were the one who brought up those dishonourable interactions. How about you return those ten fold?"

"I said that _wasn't_ going to be happening!" Insistently, but also quietly as if she were embarrassed by the subject.

"You're a fierce kunoichi, yeah, but judging from how you so prettily blushed earlier, it seems you've not had much experience in those ' _situations._ '"

At the mention of her blush, her cheeks pinked again, despite her obvious effort to remain unaffected, and the effort made him smile. Definitely embarrassed.

It was sort of sad, though, he thought. His smile dropped. He couldn't tease her when they weren't on even footing. Well, _more_ even footing. Teasing like that was more just a terrifying threat to the kunoichi. Torture, she had said.

"I-I'm a medic! Those things – _I don't care_. I'm not helping you." She fumbled and then found her resolve. "No matter what, I'm not going to betray the people I love. _I won't_."

Deidara liked that about her. She was so full of energy, so passionate. But she really was being unreasonable.

"We'll see, kunoichi. I doubt you've gone through some of the things I've seen Hidan do to people. It's not just my pretty face that you'd have to worry about, yeah." He saw the hope in her eyes that died just then with the realisation Deidara was not her sole captor. "I know, I know, yeah. I look like I'm not such a tough guy at first glance."

He flashed her his most lovely of smiles. "The fact you say you wouldn't care what happens to you – that's exciting for some people. And I won't be stopping anyone from getting what's asked from you, yeah."

"I already gave you my answer."

He frowned. "Not gonna do it, yeah?"

She had the word " _never"_ on her lips; Deidara could see it there. She yelled it from her pretty, glossy eyes.

But he'd rather she just acquiesced before she had bits of her taken by Hidan. Hidan liked souvenirs.

"I want you to know this, the way my chakra works," Deidara said. He leaned down close to her face. "You're a medic, you can picture this, yeah. The way chakra goes under the skin, into the muscle, can pump its way through veins."

She was very carefully controlled under him.

"And I'm sure you know fire, too. Not just the heat, yeah, but the _burning."_ He heard her breathing cut short. "Turn me into _dust_ , kunoichi _– I'll brand you from the inside out._ "

He would –

A boisterous and not at all apologetic – rather sadistically _pleased_ – voice broke through Deidara's speech. "Sorry to interrupt!"

With a hard, guilty thump in his chest from his heart skipping a beat, Deidara pushed away from the girl. He retreated to other side of the bed before facing their guest standing inside the door.

When had his body relaxed so much? Enough so to miss Kisame's giant form entering the room.

Feeling the atmosphere had shattered with the man's presence _,_ Deidara couldn't keep the rough snap from his lips. "The hell are you doing here?"

In his peripheral vision he saw the kunoichi move to the edge of the bed, composing herself, and he knew his time with her was finished. He watched dispassionately as she healed the bites he'd given her from the mouths on his hands. Erasing him off her so effortlessly.

"Ah, so this is _the_ Haruno Sakura, apprentice to Tsunade," Kisame declared in a tone that was more amused and mocking than appreciative. "Did our brooding hospitality boy manage to explain everything before he jumped you? Probably not, that guy's too hot-blooded."

"Still here, yeah," Deidara reminded the man. He compulsively tugged at his cloak, straightening imaginary lines and wiping off non-existent dust. "Whatever, she gets the idea of what's going on. She's agreed to do what Leader asks of her, yeah."

" _I have not,_ " the girl in question scoffed. Matching Deidara's glare, "I'd sooner bite off my tongue."

Reacting as if she were about to do just that, both Kisame and Deidara appeared at her side, each ready to break her jaw to keep her from carrying out the promise. Deidara had one hand at the base of her neck while the other hovered just over her throat; Kisame had Samehada positioned unwaveringly just inches away from her chin.

Her hair fluttered at their movements and she blinked at their speed. Her eyes were wide and her body tense.

Maybe she hadn't really understood just how much of a gap there was between her level and theirs, Deidara thought, sensing how quickly her body had locked up. Really, she shouldn't make such bold statements so lightly.

"Perhaps you can wait on that until after you've spoken to Itachi," Kisame said, a sneer slashed across his face. "Let's see if he can persuade you otherwise. Or would you prefer I just shave off as much skin as Samehada wants until you agree?"

The scales of the blade stretched in anticipation, pulsing under their bandages wrapping his sword.

Deidara felt her swallow and he knew she was thinking over her options. He hoped she would agree to talk to Uchiha; he rather liked her skin attached to her and all in one piece. His grip tightened reflexively when she answered.

In a level-headed, steady voice, she said, "I'm not going to betray my best friend just to save myself some pain. I refuse."

At her assured response, Samehada's bandages released and Kisame moved the blade to her throat without hesitation. The medic-nin didn't flinch, even if she had registered its movement.

But Deidara had, and without thought he blocked its path with his forearm, clenching his teeth as the serrated scales started to tear into his skin.

"Damn it, Kisame," he bit out. "Don't be so impatient, yeah. She can't be roughed up too much or she might go and die on us."

Shit, that was going to bruise and hurt like a wasp-fuck.

A long pause before Kisame carefully withdrew his weapon.

He explained what he'd already figured, "she won't respond to threats of physical harm, anyway."

"I'm not so convinced," the older man murmured.

"Her weakness isn't there, she's already aware of how fragile she is. She'll resist anything we throw at her until she blacks out, yeah." And Deidara wished she hadn't just inclined her chin as if to agree with him.

Did she wonder how he knew her so well? How he just _knew_ where to hit her the hardest?

So he spoke to her then rather than Kisame. "Your vessel-friend is well protected, yeah, but we don't have to go after him to get your compliance. How about that Yamanaka heir? She's cute, yeah. Such a good friend of yours, except no one's really watching her too closely. Be so simple to snap that little thing in half."

Deidara's words struck a nerve. Sakura glared at him, starting to shake, and he thought her hands were itching to suffocate him. Maybe to claw his eyes out?

"You shouldn't underestimate her," she said, intending to be challenging, but it was a lot less confident than how she sounded earlier. "You wouldn't be able to get close to her."

Kisame glanced at the kunoichi then back to Deidara, dubious.

Deidara smiled, knowing it was disconcerting by how she shrank away from his bared teeth. He had her by the nape of her neck and she didn't retreat far.

"Just like how I couldn't get close to the Kazekage?" he asked. His good hand caressed the soft strands of hair under his fingers. "Like how I couldn't get close to you, yeah, the beloved student of the Fifth Hokage?"

She was silent, chewing over his words.

Just to make sure she got the point, he clarified for her, "your family, your friends, mentors, comrades, acquaintances, patients. Give me any reason and I'll go after everyone you've ever even deigned to greet. Any more resistance from you and I'll be happy to transform them all into art. I might even let you watch."

The room hummed in the silence after his colourful assurances.

Her posture lost its stiffness and her eyes were losing their shine, the fire in them abating to a slow burn. Her tone was too bleak. "How can I trust you?"

Deidara pouted, not liking her shift in presentation.

"Even if you gave me your word," she went on, "I know that you'll just end up doing whatever you want in the end. How can I weigh my duties as a kunoichi against my friendships when there's no certainty that you'll keep up your end of the deal? You're a _lawless_ ninja. There are no negotiations in this situation. Nothing good is guaranteed by me helping the enemy. For damage control, the very least I can do is keep silent and not provide you with anything useful, no matter the threats you make."

She was unwavering; she didn't once break eye contact with him while she spoke.

He sighed and pushed away from her, too disgruntled to be so close. He took several steps towards the door just to keep himself from squeezing her until that rational voice cracked.

"Fine," he said from where he stopped next to Kisame, his back to the girl. "See what Uchiha has to say to her. He'll change her mind, yeah, one way or another."

"Itachi won't be ready to see her for a while," Kisame reminded him. "What if I just trained a little, _played_ with her some, until he returns?"

The thought of such a huge man, startlingly shark-like nin, _playing_ in any context was slightly disturbing to Deidara.

He shrugged, "I'm not going to stop you, yeah."

The girl behind him leaped away from the sword, but it was useless. Samehada didn't need to touch her in order to leech out her chakra. She was subdued quickly, backed into the headboard and clearly unconscious with the way her head was lolling over a shoulder. It would cramp painfully if she slept too long like that.

"I bet that was some measly amount of chakra, Samehada. But it's hard to say 'no' when it's just sitting there for the taking." Kisame swung the sword around to strap it against his shoulders once more. "Piss poor play time, eh?"

He patted Deidara good-naturedly as he sauntered out of the room as silently and abruptly as he had arrived.

Deidara watched the empty hallway beyond the doorway for a few moments before he turned around and approached the bed. Mechanically, not minding she was still covered in dirt and dried blood, he shifted the girl into a less awkward sleeping position and rearranged the bedding to cover her.

She was loud and obstinate and talented and loyal – and Akatsuki would sever her spine to make her bow.

o o o

 **Author's note:** Who doesn't like a good ol' brawlin? Man, I love a Sakura who fights. Love it! Remember all the fics where... she ...didn't fight? And all the scenes in the manga, too? What is up with that? Trash.


	2. Poaching

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

 **Author's note:** First off, thank you! Thank you everyone for your support. (I need it) Secondly, as a warning, this story has the potential to be very uncomfortable for some. Lots of unhappy topics. Be mentally prepared.

o o o

Sakura couldn't keep her head from dropping to one shoulder or the other, couldn't keep her chin from hitting the stones behind her or dropping to her chest. What ailed her was an exhaustion she had never felt before in her life, making her body thick like sand in a canvas sack, her limbs magnetized to the floor on which she sat. She was wedged into the space between the bed and its side table, her back to the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. She settled herself leaning into the mattress and decided it would be easier to think if she didn't have to focus so much energy on posture.

The Akatsuki had taken her hostage with the intention to make her heal one of theirs.

It was a strange thing for her to accept. It felt separate from reality. She thought they must be lying to her.

What would they do next?

They needed something from her, but they couldn't torture her to gain compliance, as they might risk making her incapable of functioning. She had to be mentally and physically able in she were going to act medic.

Perhaps they would take the route of emotional manipulation. Threats of retaliation against loved ones was on the table, as well, but that was a distant, nebulous potentiality on which they could not immediately and obviously act.

Maybe they would physically torture her. Maybe they would start with her toes and take a little bit more each day she refused. Working up one leg to her knee and maybe higher. She didn't need both legs to do her work. They could take an ear, or both, her tongue and teeth.

Back in Konoha, during her training days, she had once treated a man who had been sliced across his chest in torture, both nipples cut right off. Another woman had suffered from clamps and screws set into her knees and elbows, wrists and ankles. Maybe Sakura would be burned by fire or acid. Or kept perpetually in a state of near complete energy deprivation. Just coherent enough to diagnose or heal with rudimentary methods. She wished she weren't a medic just then. The knowledge she had gave her too much insight of the body and her ideas for torture became more elaborate than her captors could probably ever conceive or dare to try.

Still – she was pretty much fucked. It would not be good if she didn't make a move, fast.

In her situation, there were certain courses of action that were likely to happen: Firstly, she could just do as they asked; there was the torture route, well explored already; there was a potential for rescue, but very unlikely; and there were two manners of escape, one in which she lived and the other in which she died by her own hand.

Well, not _escape_ so much, but at least the Akatuki wouldn't get what they wanted from her.

For the moment, Sakura focused on thinking of a successful escape.

Things to consider: she was stuck in unfamiliar territory; she was without her team (two of whom were dead); she was without her tools; she was abysmally low on energy. But she had her clothes and her boots and those things were good. She had only minor injuries and she was mostly lucid. Also good.

As for the state of her captors, Sakura knew of at least two and that there was a chance of a third, though his condition was unknown. If Akatsuki had been desperate enough to kidnap _her,_ of all people, to heal Uchiha Itachi, then it was possible he was in no state to fight. Not that she could count on that assumption, and so she gauged him at his fullest capacity in her equation for the sake of avoiding any mortal estimations.

 _Which meant_ , she thought as she ran her dried and cracked lip between her teeth, in order to escape (into unquantified territory. On her own. With no supplies) she had to get through three fully-fledged and able S-class nin – who were also some of her country's greatest enemies.

She needed to outmanoeuvre three men who all just happened to be geniuses in different fields of combat: Deidara, a strategic long-ranged fighter specialising in explosives, as she remembered from her mission to Suna, but who was also unquestionably accomplished in close-range fighting as well; Hoshigaki Kisame, an expert swordsman whose weapon could suck her chakra dry without even having to touch her; and Uchiha, of course, had acutely honed hand-to-hand skills, weapons skills, and prodigious strategic acuity, all on top of a bloodline limit that was powerful beyond comprehension.

Additionally, they each possessed greater speed, stamina, and raw power than most of the higher ranked operatives in her entire village.

Sakura had her clothes and her boots. And her comparatively feeble amount of chakra. But they wanted something from her. She had leverage, too. Akatsuki needed her medical skills. She might delay them torturing or killing her for a little while, get herself some opportunity to escape.

And in the mean time, she would... act friendly? And hope they didn't get bored of her or find someone else better suited for the job... But how long did she really have to wait, to sit idly on her hands with no direction of action?

She really – she really wasn't ready to die yet. Not here. Not like this. She couldn't die away from the battlefield, in the enemy's possession, _alone._ She could take her own life, save her village the trouble – and sure, cost them the investment they had put into her as a combat medic – but she could do the honourable thing and make sure she couldn't ever be used to advance the goals of Akatsuki by ending her life discreetly as a true operative would.

No one would ever know what had happened to her, they wouldn't know how she had acted for their interests, but she could always do that.

But she wasn't ready to give up. Maybe she was too immature, too hopeful, too scared, but she couldn't go without a fight.

One minor problem being she didn't know where to start in fighting Akatsuki. She needed to know how to move before she moved.

Sakura ripped off her leather gloves, tossing them aside spitefully, and lifted her hands to tug at her hair in frustration. It hurt to move, and she pulled the rough locks and scraped her fingers against her scalp and made herself hurt even more. She hoped the pain would trigger some brilliant plan.

Instead, she felt the material of her Konoha headband and her frantic movements stopped momentarily before she ran her hands up to the metal that rested on top of her head. Sakura thoughtfully traced its shape as she remembered the day she had earned the symbolic piece of armour and taken an oath to serve her village to the best of her abilities.

For a few minutes, lost in recollection, she was completely still but for her fingers deftly flitting over her greatest pride.

After a while, her hands lowered back to the top of her knees and her body felt lighter than it had since she had regained consciousness.

She wasn't sure whether to smile or to cringe, but her heart was beating with so much determination that she couldn't be sure it wasn't visibly shaking her ribcage.

Sakura had a plan.

o o o

Deidara stood in front of a mirror, eyes scrutinizing and hard, looking at the damage the kunoichi had done to his jaw. His other cheek, forehead, and nose – most of the good parts, thankfully – all remained unharmed.

Dejected, he poked at the reddened and swollen part of his face. Earlier he had managed to find ice from the freezer to keep the tissue from becoming too tender, but from what he could tell, there was definitely going to be bruising. Which wasn't so bad. He was used to such things. But this was his _face_ that was jeopardized.

Plus, if it got any worse, he wouldn't be able to keep his scope on without chafing his skin. And that was never pleasant.

He clicked his tongue, grimaced. The girl was doing favours for Uchiha already and she didn't even know it.

He frowned as he replaced the piece of ice against his jaw, deciding that staring at his face wouldn't make the problem go away any faster. He didn't dwell on how much worse the damage could have been if he hadn't avoided her strike at the last second. The thought of losing a few teeth, let alone having his bones shattered, was enough to make him wince.

At the same time...it was sort of invigorating. Her technique was explosive, if somewhat differently from his own jutsu, but it was commendable. Cracking open the earth in one move and in the next pulverizing the bodies of people who by all means were physically stronger than her. Hundreds of thousands of microscopic explosions resulting from her skin just touching her opponent's.

That was really something to see.

And if the victim of one of her hits were a friend, after all the damage was dealt, then her chakra would come back to them. Only it would different – there to heal and patch up and cleanse.

It was always churning, her chakra, never static in state or purpose. He could appreciate that dynamism.

In fact, Deidara thought as he left the bathroom to the adjoining room, he really wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of her mystical palm jutsu. Maybe she'd look at him with those wide eyes and bite her lip as she worried over him.

Well…she probably wouldn't worry over him.

Shit, it was sort of unfair that _he_ had been the one responsible for picking up Haruno Sakura; the time spent observing her, planning out how best to pluck her like a little leaf while none were the wiser, and all his efforts went to some other chump's benefit. The worst of all the chumps, actually. Why did Deidara have to be the one to see all that Haruno Sakura was – all the potential she had? – only then to leave her. Leave her to some fucking birdshit stain like Uchiha Itachi.

Fucking _shame_. Criminally boring. She had killed Sasori! She had left that chamber to dusty fragments, littered in felled masterpieces of the greatest ninja to come out of Wind, and now she was supposed to patch up some insipid, artistically benighted, genetic cheater like Uchiha?

 _Wasteful_ , really.

As soon as the other man was well enough, Sakura would be gone. She'd crumble, broken, and they would fumble with whatever scraps of her might survive.

Deidara wouldn't have much reason to see her again, let alone fight her.

Fuck, how he'd like to fight her.

But as soon as Uchiha got around to her, she would disappear for good.

Deidara's steps paused as he felt a detection seal go off. It was the one placed in the doorway of his quarters, where the girl was staying. She was awake, moving around, and she must have realized she'd set something off because her chakra flare immediately retreated back into the room. But this was something enough that deserved some chastisement nonetheless. He grinned, ice pack sliding out of his grip to land with an unheard _clap_ on the stone floor.

Not bothering to retrieve his cloak (which he had tossed on his new bed hours ago in favour of getting a better look at his bruised and cut up arms from where he'd stopped Samehada) Deidara left his room still smiling.

His expression darkened as he passed Kisame in the cramped room that served as a common library and lounge area. Acting deeply affronted, he said, "let me take care of this, yeah."

"Gotta be pretty bored, kiddo," Kisame said, eyes curious and sharp, "jumping to your feet."

"Your 'old man' company somehow isn't doing it for me." So he _was_ bored. Was there any fault in that?

He was young, he was without a fight, he wanted _something._

"Hold up."

Deidara slowed to look over his shoulder to where Kisame sat reclined, feet up on another chair, at the card table.

Reaching to the ground next to him and out of Deidara's eyesight, he retrieved a metal bucket. He shook the thing as if to say, 'here, this.'

"What's that about?" Deidara asked, noting the smug look Kisame donned.

"Shit bucket," he replied, tossing it to Deidara.

Not at all wanting to touch something labelled as such, he leaned back an inch so the bucket passed him and clanged to the floor a pace away. Kisame gave him a bothered look.

"The fuck is that for? I don't need that!"

"It's clean, idiot." Patiently, with some tempered humour, "and it's for the little lady."

Deidara made a face. "Fuck that, yeah. She can just use the base facilities."

Kisame snorted and stood from his seat.

"What's so wrong with that, yeah?" He asked.

"Never been in charge of prisoners before, eh? They always get the drop on ya when you give 'em luxuries." Pushing passed Deidara to retrieve the bucket again, Kisame then pushed it into Deidara's chest. "I did do her the favour of having a second bucket. I am giving her that."

It was true. The two were stuck together in a stack. Deidara didn't quite follow the significance. "How... generous?"

"Years ago, when I was prisoner in Kiri, I got a shit bucket," Kisame volunteered. "Guards took it out for me when I'd used it. Real nice of them. Brought me back a water bucket right after."

And then, with a vicious sort of smile, he said, "fuck if wasn't the same damn bucket. Didn't bother with the courtesy of emptying it."

Deidara groaned and tried not to gag at the unfortunate image.

"She'll need to eat." Kisame said, taking to heart that Deidara knew nothing of managing a captive. "And she can't stay in your room for lodgings. She'll definitely kill you if you get close. If she's sick, she's faking. You stripped your bedding, right? No, for her...more than that; she shouldn't have furniture. Anything she can pick up, she will use it as a projectile or for bludgeoning."

Deidara's impulse was to be snide and dismissive, but the man had some fair points. He looked to the buckets in his hands and pulled an exaggerated frown. "Anything else, yeah, mister CO?"

Kisame had five more words of advice. "Don't. Get. Close. To. Her."

" _Yeah, yeah,_ heard you the first time."

But where would the fun be in listening to that?

The room wasn't far from where Deidara had left the other Akatsuki member, so when he got to the kunoichi he made sure to shut the door behind him. It would do some good for their privacy.

Sakura had backed into the corner of the room adjacent to door on its handle side. She had her arms loose at her sides and her shoulders straight. She was standing, but otherwise looked the same as when he'd left her. Hair and clothes disheveled, bruises purple and brown on her skin, only little scabs red and fresh left from gashes of her last skirmish. Her eyes were bright and her face void of emotion – at least until she noticed what he was carrying and made a curious face.

"What's that?" She asked.

Deidara – who had forgotten all about Kisame's damned buckets – almost lost his cool demeanour. A beat passed and he tossed the things over his shoulder as if they weren't worth mentioning. _They were never there!_ They banged loudly into a wall and rattled as they came to rest on the floor. He kept his face very even in expression and mentally dared her to say something. "I don't have – It's nothing, yeah."

"...Okay," she offered after a moment.

"So, you've accepted the proposition?" Deidara asked, quick to move the subject forward. "Or are you using this chance to measure up your obstacles to ditching this joint."

At least she wasn't brandishing a desk leg or something like Kisame had suggested.

She rolled her eyes and a sigh left her, easing her stance. Not answering his questions, she said, "I'm really just thinking about how hungry I am, actually. If you expect me to do any healing, then I'll need food, water, adequate rest. You know, maybe less physical violence."

She went on to say something else, but Deidara had stopped paying attention. He was watching the way her fingers dug into her arms, tensing and relaxing in a cyclic pattern as if she were constantly having to remind herself why _not_ to just up and deck him in the face again. She was trying too hard to keep her composure and it showed. The muscles in her arms tensed, her feet shifted, her fingers twitched. Her body was anticipating a fight even as her voice and countenance placidly tried to deny as much. Maybe it was a new tactic of hers? He raised an eyebrow as he wondered over her motivations and, seeing this, Sakura trailed off halfway through her sentence.

"What? What is it? I'm not being unreasonable." She retreated further into her corner, becoming a bit defensive. He followed the retreat without thinking. She watched his feet and his eyes, back and forth between the two as he took his steps. "Nutrition is important for people like us who are always using so much of our chakra."

Deidara perked up, still carefully moving closer. "People like us, yeah. That's funny you'd say it like that."

She waved her fingers impatiently. "Well, it's true. I'm sorry, but we're in the same profession. I hope you're not going to try and say otherwise."

"No, that's not it." He didn't move again, he'd be within her striking distance if he did. "It's a method, yeah, linking us together. You're getting my sympathy with that. Trying to, at least."

"Believe me, I'm not excited about grouping us together." She lifted a shoulder. "And I don't care a damn bit for your sympathy. Just want something to eat."

"Before you heal Uchiha."

She hedged her response. "Also not excited at that prospect."

Deidara 'hmmed,' understanding her reservations. He would prefer the man to drop dead. Or, well, he might really prefer to kill the man himself. Either option would suffice. At least she was beginning to appreciate the situation she was in, was a bit more reasonable after her stunt earlier. He said, "fine. I'll get you something to eat. Get you a shower or something, too."

The offer caught her by surprise and she, out of habit probably, slipped out a 'thank you.' It sounded sincere, too. As he turned to leave, her expression was more open and optimistic. He also caught in his peripheral her dominate hand shifting behind her back.

His reaction was one born from many repeated scenarios. She had gone to reach for a weapon and Deidara immediately snapped to her spot in the corner to stop her. He grabbed the reaching arm, swept a leg out from under her, and slammed her body to the ground. He followed her there, using his weight on her back to incapacitate her facedown on the floor.

Under him, she was cussing and writhing in pain. She seemed to have figured out the cause for his response. "I don't have anything on me, you ass! You _took_ all my weapons, remember?"

Ah. So she was unarmed.

He could let her go... but then... they were already pretty much fighting, so he could also just let that happen as well. From his position, he had all the control and so he shifted his weight ever so slightly to give her an out. Obligingly, she seized it and wriggled one arm free to jab two fingers into his hip.

For normal people it would be a pointless endeavour, but from her the hit stung like a hot iron rod smashing into the joint.

" _Fuck,_ " it hurt. Deidara sank to his right side, to the hip that wasn't throbbing like teeth shattering together, and he lost his hold on her. He pushed himself away to lean against the end of the bed frame.

She was laughing. It was short and forgotten in a second, but she had let out a victorious, smug bite of amusement at his folly. But she was winded and her movements were tar slow with exhaustion as she dragged herself into a seat with her legs under her knees.

Deidara hissed and rubbed at the offended leg as he eyed her righting herself. "Shit... Was that necessary, yeah?"

"You _gave_ me the opening."

"That hit had chakra in it. Should've saved that last bit of energy for a more mortal injury."

She was panting, shaking, and it looked like she was fighting to keep her eyes open.

"I was aiming to hit hard enough to shatter your bones and rupture your femoral artery," she told him. "Like an internal severing."

"Pleasant, yeah."

"I think it's justified."

"Ehn. I think all you managed was to dislocate my hip." He smiled, one-sided and sly. Sweeping a hand over his hips. "Come over here and check it for me?"

Her answer was a very put-upon roll of her eyes. "Oh joy, you're the first to ever ask me for that."

"You're obviously not in the proper shape to fight anymore, yeah. Might as well pass the time more amicably."

"Or, counterpoint –" She punched him.

The force behind it was mediocre, but the aim was perfect and it landed on the same spot she'd kneed him in the face previously. Another wave of pain through his head and shaking down his teeth. It wasn't enough to deter him, but it wasn't all she had to offer.

She had leaped for him to make the punch land, and she followed through with using her entire body weight to get him to the ground, returning the hold he'd used earlier. On top of him, straddling his middle, and he was left to gaze up at her. A petite stature and her current lack of stamina made the whole effort seem trivial to him, and he caught her wrists before she could wrap her hands around his neck. She could return a boulder to rubble and yet she couldn't break his grip. As he laid out beneath her, staring up at her, holding her there, Deidara found he didn't have anything to say.

"See, us like this? This is alright." Well, except for that.

"Quit it. Stop doing that," she said. Sakura had all the chance she needed to crack his hyoid bone, let him suffocate, send a chakra scalpel up his nose, snip into his brain – whatever she wanted. But she was wincing and considering him with hesitation.

He waited. He wondered if she liked this new arrangement for them. He was't minding so much.

Was she bored like him, too? Always wanting for more.

She asked, dismayed, "are you not fighting back because I'm too beneath you to even merit the effort?"

It was another revelation of her background and insecurities. She couldn't shake it. After everything, all she had done and all he had done to get _her_ and only her...

"I'm half interested in fighting," Deidara told her. "And if anyone's beneath anyone, I'll call attention to our current position. I'm not opposed, yeah."

" _Ugh."_ A flustered breath followed and then, "you're acting like we're not even _enemies!_ You killed the Kazekage."

Deidara pointed out that he'd lived, eventually. As well, "our intelligence says that guy tried to kill you first."

She was unconvinced.

"And not to be one to point fingers here, yeah, but you killed my partner-slash-mentor. You don't see me holding any grudges for it."

"You've taken me prisoner."

"You say 'prisoner,' I say we're _recruiting_ you... With some teeny-tiny, extra encouragement."

She bounced her eyebrows in a perplexed fashion, not at all impressed. Her body was otherwise motionless save for the rise and fall of her chest and the jumping pulse on her neck. He watched her as she studied his face. She said, " _idiot_. I really am going to end you."

Her quiet assuredness in the declaration made his blood hot in that nice sort of way. _Hell,_ if that were the case, he'd love to have a no-holds-barred battle with her one on one. Outside this damned little room, in the open air, explosions taking them each to ruin. He would stifle that little flame of oxygen she carried and make her dance – but it would be such a _rush._ He wanted to fight her, be up against her. Move with her.

"Promises, yeah," he returned, just as softly and confidently.

She was sat on his middle, her knees tight to his sides, and he felt her squeeze him and then relax her hold. He had her hands between them and the tension in her resistance there lessened, too. Her eyes were on his bruised jaw, his nose, his mouth, thoughtful and unhurried.

He thought they moved together when her arms dropped to ground on either side of his neck. She was leaning over him, weight dropping to her forearms and his hands had found their way to the curve below her waist. But he was thinking about her lips just then and she was closer still.

Rolling his hips was in part to alleviate the strain on his newly received injury and, perhaps a little bit more, to relieve other tension he had. She moved with him and his eyes slipped closed as he shared the whisper from her lips.

And then she smacked her forehead into his and there was a crack as his skull met stone.

o o o

Reclining on a half broken sofa, idly searching the twelve-country inclusive bingo-book for a good time, Kisame frowned when he felt the energy in the base shift. It was sudden and discomforting enough to get his attention. Deidara's shielded chakra signature was still in the room with the medic-nin, but the oscillating spikes and dips so often associated with it settled into a relaxed state rather abruptly.

Kisame looked up from the profile of a one-armed, bisento-wielding kuniochi to stare at the bookcase in front of him. Eyes unseeing, he focused on the room a few walls beyond, trying to feel out what was going on.

Was that shrimp unconscious?

He hadn't been surprised to find Deidara with the medic-nin early in the morning, but Kisame had been a bit wary of the interest he seemed to have with her. She was young and pretty and strong, but she was just a kid. There was no reason for Deidara to be harassing her. She needed to be sane enough to heal Itachi, and having the attentions of a sadistic rogue-bomber focused on her would most likely only result in upsetting her mental state.

If she could not focus on healing Itachi, then Kisame would have to kill her. Meaning that more time would be wasted on finding another, equally qualified and equally obtainable medic-nin. And his partner could not afford that time; his condition was bad and getting worse.

Deidara, who had been coerced into the organisation in the first place, held no loyalties to Itachi, and therefore couldn't be bothered to restrain himself when it came to meddling with something that caught his attention.

In that way, Deidara was still sort of a kid himself, too.

No. Worse. Deidara and the medic-nin were _teenagers._ Young, fumbling adults with too many hormones and way too much access to destructive weapons and overpowered techniques.

 _Yep, definitely an unconscious kid_ , Kisame confirmed.

He sat up, strapped Samehada to his back, and set off to find out what had happened. The chakra signature of the girl was still in the room, feeble and fluttering.

Kisame turned down a hallway and came to a stop at the closed door of their captive's room. Deidara's quarters, usually.

Opening the door, he frowned and wished for the good old days, when _he_ had been the young and stupid one in his group and he had never had to worry about walking in on such scenes.

In front of him, the medic was on top of Deidara, looking guilty, and the former was slack in his spot laid out on the floor.

"He dead?" Kisame asked.

"Uh..." She looked from him back to her hands wrapped around Deidara's red throat, the skin pale from the pressure under her fingertips. Setting back to it, "give me one sec – "

Taking the sword from his back, Kisame tsked. "Tried to warn him. Kid's too blind. Must be that damn scope he's always got on. Messing with his perception."

The medic was low and placed in an inconvenient spot with the door and the bed. He wanted one clean strike and it was an awkward swing to make, what with constrictions from the dimensions of the room and his weapon alike, but not impossible. The ideal arc was just – like – so –

He didn't miss. He never missed. The sword went exactly where he wanted it to go. He just didn't hit his target.

She had dodged like she knew how he was going to attack. No, it was almost like she had planned for his movements, had put them into place before he had even been in the room. With the way he had swung his his sword, right handed, as usual, he had crossed his body, pivoted on his foot and exposed his flank.

His exposed flank was precisely where the medic put herself, her hands glowing and reaching for his spine.

Kisame dropped his sword, clamped her against his side until a rib or two of hers snapped, and then grabbed her by the back of her neck to yank her up and away. He caught one of her hands with his, but the split-second decision welcomed the chakra scalpel in her free hand to his bicep. The medic started to choke and gag and fuss in his hold and the scalpel she had formed struggled to pierce his skin or to sink very far into his flesh. He smirked.

"You'll find I'm a little more durable than most," he said.

Her legs spasmed and he hoped she would black out soon enough. She kicked out, pushed into his chest, used her hands to scrape and beat on his forearm, trying to tear into the muscles there. It was a little pathetic.

It was when one of her feet came to rest on the wall behind him that he thought she was going to calm down and accept the inevitable, but her other leg was tucked to her chest between them, her foot tapping its way up his torso. Which was strange, because from this distance and position, she would never have the force behind a kick to do very much damage –

– unless she could also somehow release destructive chakra from her feet, too.

From her foot to his sternum, now directly under her toes...

He swore just as the wind was knocked from him.

The effect was instantaneously; his grip faltered, his stance weakened, his vision blurred and his face went hot. He couldn't breathe. He threw all his mass forward, trying to crush the medic in a tackle, but she crouched low to the ground, went under and behind him, and kicked one of his knees out, dropping him.

She hit him again and he could feel how it was her hands threaded together in a fist coming down to his spine. He grunted and she must have put chakra into the blow, trying to snap his back. His face hit the floor and his vision darkened.

He thought he heard the muted pattering of her feet as she fled the room.

Well, _fuck_. Kisame groaned. So the medic was a little less pathetic than he thought.

o o o

She built her strategy on all she had observed of Deidara and Kisame's behaviour in the few minutes they had interacted. She used the only environment she knew to her advantage. She acted how she needed them to see her – vulnerable, uncertain, weak. She took all the hits they sent her and she curled her fingers into fists.

Sakura was a kunoichi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves and she was going to escape Akatsuki.

Sakura's greatest weapon was her mind. Sure, being an apprentice to Tsunade had given her so much more than she – _than anyone_ – ever thought her capable, but when it came down to the quick, if she didn't have her wits about her, she would just be a brute who could break trees in half.

Knowledge and the ability to efficiently put whatever facts she had to good use would be her route to survival.

She had cleared a few hallways so far, mentally mapping out her surroundings while taking in as much information about the environment as possible. The building she was in was made completely of stone and was lit by seals attached to the ceiling every few metres. From what she'd seen of the rooms so far, this was a sort of storage complex, housing archives and weapons, as well as rooms full of what looked like pilfered goods, and all of them were guarded by sensory seals like the one from her room.

By the thin slickness on the surface of the rocks, she figured that she was underground, and the damp chillness in the air backed up her deduction. Sakura had counted several air ducts on her way, though none large enough to fit through, but had yet to find any staircases. She figured the area was a basement level beneath a possible upper-level 'front' building. She kept one hand to the wall on her right, knowing that her 'centre,' consisting of the bedroom, was to her left. The schematics of the place weren't entirely clear to her yet, but logic told her that the wall further from the centre would likely be the outer one. So far all she really knew was that the building had an impossibly large number of chambers and seemingly no staff or occupants other than the two Akatsuki members she'd already felled. It didn't seem like her intended patient was anywhere around.

Sakura crept as quietly as she could for a long time. Everything looked the same. She turned another corner and entered a long stretch of hallway with doors lining each side, but at the end she could steps leading to a floor overhead. No mask or obfuscation, not even a door, just steps. Sakura's chest was lace light and she couldn't keep a smile from her lips. She felt it – the promise of freedom. Hope. _Escape._

The fractures in her ribs seemed to dissipate, as did her near delirious state of lethargy. Sakura sprinted. She ran faster than she ever had. She hit the stairs and stumbled so that she had to climb the first few before she regained her momentum and took two, three steps at a time. She saw a door straight ahead. There was a draft of fresh, cool air. It tasted like rain crisp on her tongue, was sweetly sharp in her lungs.

The door burst open as she hit it, insubstantial and inconsequential as she staggered out into the open.

Everything was pitch black. Above her, around her, below her. The door was gone, the stairs were gone, and she stood on solid nothing. No air stirred as she spun in place, her adrenaline-mad heartbeat stormed in her chest and her mind went as empty as the space around her.

"No," she said. A chant, "no, no, _no_..."

Whatever was holding her upright fell out from under her and Sakura plummeted. Her tongue cut under her teeth, filled her mouth with copper warmth.

She gasped as she came back to her senses.

"Careful. You would not want to inhale that blood."

Sakura wasn't alone. She was back in a hallway of the Akatsuki base, her entire body trembling and begging for collapse, and stood in front of her, the image of leisurely control, was Uchiha Itachi.

He didn't react at all as she coughed red and spat at his feet. His appearance and proximity was much less tangible to her than his genjutsu had been. He was all wrong; facing her with coal dark eyes and without the signature Akatsuki cloak, he looked too normal. Too unassuming. And still Sakura couldn't get her body to move, couldn't feel anything beyond her uneven breathing and thudding heart. Her vision seemed to keel to one side and she realised her knees were giving.

"Will you lose consciousness as well?" Itachi asked her, though it sounded rhetorical.

Sakura couldn't answer anyway. She slowed her descent, barely, and managed not to violently meld her head with the stone flooring.

"Pity," he said, watching her fall. "Playing mother to the three of you is _not_ how I would prefer to enjoy my evening."

She wasn't going to pass out, she refused to allow it.

Sakura had failed in her first gamble. Her cleverness had been shortsighted and her best chance for freedom was gone. _She did't make it._

"I got two out of three," she said, breathless and satisfied. She smiled. At least that much of her flight had been real.

Next time she would do better.

o o o

 **Author's Note:** My gad. Typos. I'm so srory.


	3. Fight for Tomorrow

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

 **Author's note:** Itachi exposition and introspection that I hope is at least a little original. Please consider sharing your thoughts :) And thank you for the reviews so far!

o o o

The more debilitating symptoms of his illness had started just as everything else in Itachi's life came to an end.

Four weeks before Itachi killed him, Shisui had been the one to sit with him at the hospital as a medic-nin did an exam and ran tests. His older cousin had moved around the room with a nervous energy and bounced off thin jokes about anything he saw. Shisui hadn't wanted to come, not really; his trepidation over the unknown and his inability to do something about it were palpable. But that he _had_ come despite his unease had made Itachi smile more than the forced humour.

On the battlefield, Shisui was a merciless fighter and famed for his skills from a young age. In combat, He was nothing anything like the boy Itachi knew from their time growing up together in the compound – the person who was joyful and fumbling and overprotective. He was informed and thoughtful, helpful, and the first person Itachi had known to be critical of their family's old feud with the village authority. Everything Itachi knew about being a shinobi, about their clan and village, he had learned from Shisui. It was his cousin that had made sure Itachi was strong in a way his father might not ever appreciate. Strong enough to win any battle and capable of ensuring peace through his actions.

But Shisui probably hadn't ever considered that Itachi was meant to ensure peace for Konoha by decimating of their entire extended family.

The clan would never change and Itachi realised as much. They all were too deep in plotting revenge. They were greedy, full of want, hate, and misery. They had power that could not be thwarted outside a dwindling number of individuals, and were preparing to use it to its fullest extent. In time, their power would be insurmountable and people would suffer.

The Uchiha were dangerous to any hope of stability within the village and the nations beyond.

When Itachi divulged the clan's preparations for a coup to the Hokage and was subsequently tasked with culling the rebellion, he did his duty as a Leaf shinobi because he knew it would secure peace for that much longer. Even with his developing illness, he never hesitated to follow his orders. He had not explained himself when he confronted Shisui, but had instead thanked his cousin for giving him the guidance and skill to help their village to the best of his ability. He had said, voice breaking for the first time while on a mission, that Shisui had always been his older brother and greatest friend. True to his protective instincts to the very end, Shisui had given Itachi more than he could have ever asked and went over to the next with his eyes hollow above a smile.

In Shisui's absence, Itachi's mindset changed. Interacting with Sasuke became easier on some levels and impossibly hard on others. The more distance he put between them, the more he wished to keep his younger sibling out of his business altogether. After taking the life of one brother it was harder to accept he would have take another. To sacrifice one life for thousands was only so simple to accept outside of theory now that he had done it once. He didn't want to do it a second time. Not an innocent child like Sasuke. Not his brother, again.

There were so many tallies in the column of the damned. Itachi could not save the girl he had started to love. He could not save his father. He could never convince his mother of anything and she wanted blood more than power. However, there was hope for little Sasuke, who was so full of wonder and eagerness to please. He didn't have to be a mark crossed off. Itachi could not tolerate taking Sasuke's life when Sasuke could be the one chance of redemption for the Uchiha name. With this reasoning, he approached the Third and asked his brother's pardon. The council had been disparaging, but the Hokage had allowed him this one demand of selfishness.

The desire burned in Sasuke's eyes and Itachi understood how his brother wanted to fight and surpass him as a ninja. It was a passion that he could see being used for the sake of the village, too, and for the sake of clearing the clan's reputation. And so, he worked to create the perfect illusion that would ensnare Sasuke's desire to one day defeat Itachi and regain the trust and respect of Konohagakure. He spent weeks thinking of what to say, how to spur his brother's devotion to the goal of killing Itachi – because that was what it would require. With the traitor's death, only then could their village ever fully trust the lineage of the Uchiha. With the complete eradication of the bloodline save for the one boy the village had raised on its own.

The village would adopt Sasuke. Nurture him and provide for him and Sasuke would have a family ten times the one he had thought to have known. He would grow and he would defeat the outcast Itachi.

More than an outcast – the proper villain. Itachi would have to embrace slaying his family. After his years of service to the Leaf, his turn would have to be believable. His skills were already known and valued, but his personality needed a new slant, and his treachery needed motivation. Being an Uchiha, the answer for his new role was _power._ He would sever his bonds with his entire world, and in the most reprehensible manner, in the pursuit of power; he would become a madman and twist into something decrepit for the shallow sake of an impossible delusion of _true strength_. Itachi needed to betray every image of sanity, resolution, and actual strength in order to show his brother the inevitable end and his redemption.

Itachi would be a villain and his brother would loathe him. Sasuke would see his faults, finally, and find answers in the warm consolation of the village. He would grow, find strength in his teammates and mentors, and he would kill Itachi.

The village failed to follow through on Itachi's vision. It flapped its gaping, hollow maw like a fish thrown from its water – only Sasuke had been the one to suffocate without any support. His maturity demented in its formation from an empty and isolated home. Sasuke's formative years were empty of emotional and social support and he abandoned the village that trapped him in the house where his parent's death stains shadowed the floor. Not the route Itachi had wanted, but at the very least, Sasuke's hatred of him was sincere and he was dedicated to killing him.

That was good.

Itachi's physical condition was not.

There was no excuse for anyone learning of Itachi's illness. He needed his image untarnished and fearsome. No one else could try and finish the job before Sasuke was ready to play his role. For years, Itachi had skirted around his impending death but his body was decaying more rapidly with each new medical ritual and cycle of questionable remedies. His treatments were less effective and he was finally at a point where he would not live long enough to fight Sasuke without drastic measures.

Which was why Akatsuki had in their possession the student of the Fifth, Haruno Sakura.

The kunoichi had never been his choice for the reason alone of being from Konoha. Itachi didn't need his village haunting him person in person. ...But her knowledge and capabilities, and really how she was _so_ _damn_ accessible, had proven her an ideal option. Konoha had very nearly offered her on a platter with little awareness for their ignorance.

Only, Deidara had failed to take into account Sakura's personality and allegiance when it came to securing her cooperation. (And he would regret that very much when he woke up.)

It was her stubborness and tenacity that landed her, crumpled in a heap on the floor of Hanzo's old safe house, three stories beneath Amegakure. She had almost escaped. She might have fled the country just fine had Itachi not been expecting her attempt to flee. He was almost sorry she hadn't succeeded.

He looked down at the girl and tried to discern how best to persuade her to aid him.

Sakura was slumped against the wall, knees under her and arms barely keeping her upright, chin jerking up sporadically to keep herself from passing out. Her energy presence was barely noteworthy and he supposed that was from Samehada's draining effects. The sword tended to leave one with a feeling much like extreme dehydration and sleep deprivation. Not very pleasant and difficult to recover from naturally with any haste. She was ready for collapse.

Seeing her in such a state, he wondered how she had managed to put Kisame on his ass. Drawing out the answer from the man later would be a delightful pursuit.

Itachi crouched down to her level.

"I apologise. You must find our hospitality as of yet inadequate, Haruno."

Her answer was an impatient, tired glare.

"Sakura," he amended, thoughtful in his word choice and approach.

She was still so young. Soft face, soft skin all decorated in dirt and bruises. Itachi thought, behind her hard eyes, she had a soft heart, too. But she was older than he had been when he massacred his clan. She had fought and killed. More than escaping, he understood she wanted most to maintain her honour in service to the Leaf. Pride and drive. A willingness to burn herself to best her enemies.

If he really was going to have her heal him, then Sakura would require a careful breaking.

"You can start your pandering with some water, then." She finally spoke. She covered her despondency with a rough, disinterested tone and an agitated pinching in her brow. The tell was how she curled more into herself even as she tried to keep her shoulders straight. She shrunk from his hand as he reached for her.

"At the very least," he agreed. He caught her jaw in his fingers and his thumb ran over the dry split in her bottom lip. Cracked and bloodied and still soft. Itachi could be soft as well. "A little time and I assure you, you will be comfortable here."

"I'd rather _die_ –"

Itachi hushed her, pressed a little harder on her lip, pushed it nice and hard into her teeth. She kept her chin pushed forward in a meagre resistance even as the rest of her bowed backwards. He dropped the hold entirely and flicked her nose. It was a light tap and the resulting slump from her was more embarrassing than harmful.

"You need a few hours to rest," he told her. "Gather your strength and your wit about you, and we will talk when you are ready."

He would not be around to guide his brother as Shisui had guided Itachi, but he would live to fulfil his brother's destiny.

o o o

Itachi and Kisame stood in the hallway outside the medic-nin's new "quarters," a half hour post-escape attempt, and discussed the situation.

"Kill her," Kisame suggested. It was the two of them alone, Deidara having been roused from his unconsciousness only to then slink unto his bed and to poke at his injured hip. Kisame was bent double next to Itachi and rubbing at his back while trying to stretch it. His words were punctured by groans and hisses out the side of his teeth. As his shirt rode up his back, a red and purpling bruise made itself apparent.

Itachi eyed the marbled skin, impressed with the expanse of the bruising and the accompanied swelling. At his partner's suggestion, he hummed, unconvinced. "Someone is a sore loser."

"Someone is being too considerate of his former allies." Kisame had a smug twist on his mouth. As pathetic as he looked, he still found the energy to prick at Itachi's facade. "Strange habit for a man who claims to _hate_ his village. Real funny how you're never able to actually snuff out any of the Leaf nin we come across. She's no different."

Sakura was in a room down the hall from where they stood. The space was small, manageable, and she could stretch out on the floor fully. Itachi had given her a blanket. When he had left her he made sure to put her into a deep, unrelenting sleep. She fought it at first, hadn't been able to thwart the jutsu, and succumbed. Her body needed the rest.

Kisame was right, he was favouring Sakura because of her ties to his village. He didn't want to kill her if her death could be avoided. All those tallies...

Ultimately, Sasuke was his only concern, and if she absolutely had to be hurt in return for his brother's salvation, then so be it. She would not be the first victim he had claimed. He was Akatsuki; there had been occasions when he had forced himself to carry out reprehensible missions in order to preserve his image. If sparing her became a problem for his goals or his image, he would dispatch her.

He didn't love the thought. He loved his village and he loved the ever distant pacifism that taunted the monster he was.

He could save her.

Or was he being too considerate of her fate? She didn't need to be another one of his small saves to atone for his sins. He could not risk Sasuke's life fulfilment just to quiet his inner turmoil, to scrape together some meagre salvation before his death. Would that risk be worthwhile?

Itachi resisted running his fingers to his brow in consternation. The answer was 'no,' and he knew with certainty right away. There was no allowance for hesitance and waste in minding the girl's life or wellness.

Sakura would heal him or he would have to destroy her so completely as to never risk the truth of his illness escaping with her. Kill her to keep things simple.

"She's gonna run," Kisame intoned with a weary shake of his chin. He eased up from his stretches, groaning like a sourly cat, and looked bothered. "She'll be a pain in the ass. Nonstop ride to a shitshow."

He agreed. "I put limiters on her wrists and ankles. She is unable to make hand seals or summon chakra. That at least should minimise any physical threat or trouble she might inflict."

"She didn't use chakra to take out that shrimp in there. Good old barehanded strangulation." Kisame held together two fingers. "This close to terminating him."

Itachi thinned his lips. He wanted to say Deidara was unlikely to make the same mistake and compromise himself to such tactics _twice_. He wanted to say as much, but couldn't quite. "We can find another distraction for him."

"He shouldn't need one. He should have some fucking shame and hide his face."

Deidara wasn't the type to hide from grievous miscalculations. He liked to revisit conflicts and failures from new angles. Fixated on righting slights. Itachi worried on that. "Do you really believe I should look elsewhere for another medic?"

While Itachi was concerned with his fellow Akatsuki being an issue, Kisame was focused on the kunoichi's reticence. "What, you gonna try winning her over with your pretty smile, too?"

Not exactly the route he had envisioned. "Do you find my smiles to be pretty? How flattering."

Kisame grimaced. "I'm serious, kid. You need someone to look at you who wants you fixed. I don't trust her putting a damned tongue depressor near you. Probably snap the thing in half and gouge an eye out with it..."

It was preposterous enough of a scenario, and yet one the kunoichi might _actually_ take, that Itachi smiled. He said, "I am not so encumbered as to fall victim to that."

"Not yet, maybe. You used one genjutsu and I can still see the sheen on your brow."

The smile fell. "Do not exaggerate."

A grumble and Kisame admitted he was just trying to emphasize his point. "You're...not your regular self, is all."

"If I am so incapable, then I suppose you have a proposal for handling the medic?"

His partner didn't answer immediately. He blew a quiet exhalation from his lips and lifted his shoulders. "Vulnerability. Fundamentally and deep down. "

Itachi waited for an elaboration and it came.

"They used to knock them up. You know?" Kisame had a peculiar look on his face. He wasn't seeing Itachi as he talked. "They used to do that. A person changes their thinking when they have some little bean growing inside 'em. Perspective and priorities can shift. So they'd trap them like that, make them sick, desperate, dependent. Get them thinking, suddenly, maybe there's something more important at stake. They can change then."

Itachi didn't consider the option and he didn't think Kisame was telling him to try it. He said anyway, dismissing the idea, "the Fifth keeps her ranks protected. Nothing would take."

Another pause and Kisame was still visiting somewhere else in his mind. And then, without inflection but obviously trying to pull himself back from wherever his memories had taken him, "huh. Smart move. She's a pragmatic leader."

Tsunade had likely instituted the change to maintain active duty numbers during recovery after the Sound-Sand invasion. Or perhaps it was preventative in other ways, as well, he didn't know. "If only her student shared the quality."

Oddly, Kisame nodded. "She's got that in her. You just have to adjust how she uses it. ...Shake her foundations, kid. Be gentle with her. Show her your humanity, tell her your truths. Get her where she _gets_ you."

"Give me a month and I would see that done." If he could only pause his illness and its rapid progression...

Or – if he could pause the world around them.

"You gotta figure out what she would like about you," Kisame continued, unaware of Itachi's thoughts, "and get her on your side. Appeal to her integrity and morals, or shit, something like that."

Itachi tilted his head, a slow movement. "I need her to know we have _always_ been on the same side. I need her to _want_ to heal me."

"You know how you'll do it?"

He didn't have months to persuade Sakura. Not in this world. ...But Itachi had another place where he could wear her down, little by little, for as long as he needed. The technique would require focus and he needed to prepare his body for the strain. He felt a familiar warmth, a wave of sharpness in his eyes as his view gained a red tinge and he considered his partner.

Kisame snorted, catching the smirk Itachi didn't share. He looked away. "Should've guessed."

Activating his technique was challenging in ways he had never before experienced. His chakra control was excellent, but even a slight change in its pattern and usage was starting to physically drain him. He could sense his demise approaching, unpleasantly close and cloying like the smell of sulphur in the air. Any excess of energy he saved for Sasuke in case their final bout were to land suddenly in front of him. He could rally for a show.

Using his technique on the medic-nin was almost wasteful. He was certain it would work, however, and then she would give him what he needed.

o o o

Itachi left her thinking Sakura was asleep. His mistake.

Sakura was in a new room. It had an open doorway, was square and around three metres deep. It was utilitarian in purpose and structure, and had in the past housed different machines, evidenced by outlines on the floor where the floor had greyed more slowly, before being emptied. Overhead and along the walls were exposed pipes, some carrying water, others for waste, more steam and heating. Together on the wall were two water spigots, and a third an arm's reach away. There was ceiling-tall, standing closet in the back corner of the room. Everything was stone or metal, all of it was aged and dirty.

On the top inside of the doorway was a seal. She figured it would set off if she tried to move under it, like the one Deidara had in his room, and resisted trying to peak her head out the room. Across from her was another door, closed. The hallway outside ended to her left and continued somewhere to her right. She had determined as much by tossing bits of stone flooring and listening to how far the pieces bounced in each direction.

She laid where Itachi had placed her on the floor under the assumption of her unconsciousness, let her body relax, and set to work figuring out the seals he had placed on each of her wrists and ankles to inhibit her chakra. She thought about the texture of his genjutsu, how his chakra had felt and interacted with hers, and how to recognize and disrupt his illusions.

Her mind was quick with planning and she waited for his return.

o o o

Itachi returned to the medic-nin's room, glass of water for the girl in hand, and he had two things catch his attention as he approached the doorway: The first warning that something was amiss was the small pile of a wrinkled blanket in an otherwise empty room; and the second warning, which he did not understand the meaning of right away but onto which he was very quickly brought up to speed, was the pattern of water droplets spilling across the room from the spigots on the wall.

He thought those lines had been turned off a long time ago.

A weight crashed into him and something wet went around his face.

Haruno Sakura had dropped from the ceiling where she must have been perched like a spider on the frame of the room's door and the pipes that ran above it. In her hands what he thought must have been a strips of the blanket that she had ripped so that she could catch his head and gag him with the fabric. She had landed most on his back, but her weight shifted to one side and she wrapped her legs around his middle to stay in place while trying to tie his neck off with the ends of her improvised weapon _._

Admittedly, the plan was clever and effective. He just would have preferred that he was not on the other end of it. Wet, abrasive suffocation was not the most pleasant of things to endure; the only good thing being that the blanket was not soaked with cleaning chemicals instead of water.

He smashed the glass he had in his hand against Sakura's head, and the hit would have been more devastating had she not been wearing a hood or more rips of blanket to cushion the blow. His fingers and palm cut up from the shards as he tried with that same hand to yank at her hair, a hold, anything. The other was busy trying to free the arm she had lassoed around his neck, having forgone using the fabric.

Itachi backed into the edge of the door jam, tried to knock her off, but she threw her weight again and made him stumble in the opposite direction, perhaps knowing that going under the seal in the divider there would alert other Akatsuki in the base of her movements.

He dropped his body to the ground, intending to crush her, and was _almost_ too busy choking to smile at the satisfying grunt of pain she made hitting the unforgiving floor. A stinging something bit into his leg - more glass, likely - and he decided to roll her in that direction.

A yelp from the glass cuts and she was in a scramble to forfeit the position she had on his back in order to move to his front for a full mount. The pressure on his neck loosened and he knew she had lost the stranglehold there. He was coughing, though, and had grope for her body blindly. He found with his bloody hand the juncture of her thigh and pelvis as she sat on him, dug his thumb into her femoral artery there. Another cry and at his victory, but her retaliation was to punch him in the temple and to grab his hair as she slammed his head into the floor, which was a little distracting even as her legs' grip around his torso slackened.

He had to buck his hips up to give himself leverage to fully break her mount, tucked his head against her chest and rolled to his side. They landed with her on the ground and him on top, one arm under her back and the other around her arm so that his forearm could rest on her windpipe. She had managed to turn her head and tuck her chin in time to stop the immediate crushing of her windpipe, her jaw taking most of the weight. Less fatal maybe, but his hold was still very uncomfortable.

She moved her leg, started to dig a heel into his inner thigh so that she could push him away and break his weight on her neck, but she wasn't strong enough and the fabric of his pants was too forgiving to allow her foot to sink deeply enough into the tissue underneath. Her then resorting to stomping at the general area of his groin was not welcome – if somewhat less effective than she might have hoped given the awkward angle. One of her hands was pinching his upper arm, weakening it, but her other arm was unaccounted for.

In simple terms, they were wrestling on the ground and it was a messy affair with the additional flavour of altogether too much glass shards, and Itachi still couldn't see from the shirt tied around his head. ...And yet, this was an improvement for him compared to how their fight had started.

Until something sharp entered his neck, cutting through the shirt to strike into a tendon. And then it sliced back out, a shallow graze hindered by the fabric. He heard her swear and knew she was going to hit again, so he gave up laying his weight over her neck to lean over onto the arm with the glass instead, immobilising the limb.

However, glass neutralised by the new position left him vulnerable in another way. She had one leg pinned under his hip, but the other was free to knee him in the crotch, repeatedly, and then one final time hard enough that she used it as anchor upon which to pivot her weight up and over him again. Itachi found her jaw with his hands, clawed skin and hair and tried to hold her still long enough to hit her upside the temple before he got sick from the complete abuse his groin was suffering.

She was on top of him again, pressing down on his windpipe and slinking away from his hits from what must have been raw perseverance. He was almost certain a few had connected in the right places, and yet... Itachi was feeling light-headed and disorientated, he couldn't stop coughing and he was struggling to breathe.

He was not exactly in a losing position, as he had a considerable advantage over the girl in his size and experience, but he did the reasonable thing and turned them side over side until he was nudging enough of her through the doorway to activate the seal there.

Backup was always good to have, just in case.

The girl wrapped around him swore. And then she was leaping off him and she kicked him in the jaw as he tried to follow her up. He blamed the shirt on his face for keeping him from better blocking the hit, but either way, her hit took his balance from him and he veered over. Through the pounding of his blood, the rasps of his breathing, he heard the slap of her foot on the stone flooring and snapped an arm out to grab her ankle and pull. She groaned out a soft yell and crashed hard.

As she was on the ground, she screamed. Loud and sudden and it roughed into shuddered cries. Sakura curled into herself, clutching at her head and there was blood trickling from her inner ear. She moaned and wept and cursed in a mess of sounds.

Itachi looked from her recoiling to the doorway. Standing there, body curved and hurting, was Deidara. He had one hand lifted to his brown and blue bruised face.

"Put a spider bomb in her head earlier," the boy offered. He looked tired and his smile was vicious. "I knew she would get the slip on you, yeah."

Not wasting her current incapacitation, Itachi crawled over the medic-nin and steadied her face. He was laid out on top of her and peeled her eyes open so Sakura could see him.

He needed her to want to heal him. He needed her to be comfortable and amiable with him. He had only thought so much about what illusion he would use on her, and in the immediate need to subdue her, there was only one scenario that he thought to give her. ...Where and how, for how long and with all the palpable strength he knew.

Red in his vision and in hers.

o o o


	4. Time Running

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

 **Author's note:** "RIP Itach's dick" - my favourite review. Thanks for all the reviews! Anyway. Leave a comment, if possible, when you read :)

o o o

Deidara had a thought.

There were three of them in the room where they had been keeping the captive, and two of the total were currently indisposed. The medic had got her final win, but the timing had been poor. And now Deidara was free to act.

Uchiha Itachi had activated his bloodline limit and immediately dropped to his side with the effort. The medic-nin was successfully captured in his illusion, but the man had been gutted with its execution.

If Deidara really wanted, he could end Itachi right there. Set a bomb to his adversary and let the man greet Beauty in its truest form before his timely end. His hand twitched with the tempting impulse, and he couldn't decide what would be the best send off. Dragon? Spider? Something new and just for this one man. Steal him up and out from Hanzo's leftover hideout. He could send Uchiha high into the air above the village, make a real spectacle of the act.

He smiled.

The expression feebly expired and he soured.

It would be a farce; an opportunistic and shallow victory.

Where would the glory be in seizing such a low hanging prize?

There would be none and it would a travesty.

That was what he hated most about shinobi – the sneaking and scheming. All the small gestures and long brewing machinations. It was a smoulder where there should have been dramatic rises and falls.

Deidara wanted there to be a bang when he killed Uchiha Itachi, and he wanted the burning, consuming build to snuffing out the blood red intensity of his Sharingan.

Let the medic heal him, whatever his ails, and then Deidara would defeat the man.

But he did, for the moment, sniff a bit haughtily and push Itachi's barely conscious form just that much further away from Sakura.

o o o

One second past midnight. Sakura broke through the door to make her escape.

Two seconds past midnight and she punched at the door to escape.

Three seconds past midnight. Sakura looked away from the wall clock and glanced around the room in which she stood. She shook her head as if to clear it, told herself she had to escape, and then rushed the door.

o

Sakura was looking at the clock on the wall. An analog design with large white minute and hour hands and numbers on a black face, and a brilliant red seconds hand. She watched the seconds' hand as it passed over one and the time read eleven minutes past the hour.

The office she was standing in was empty, brightly lit, and the uncovered window showed hints of the village lights behind the glare on its glass. Konohagakure appeared as she stepped closer, looking past her reflection.

Her reflection was wrong. It caught her attention as she looked down at the long locks of hair hanging down her shoulder. Her clothes were casual in form and the coat she wore was for civilian doctors. Eyes to the window again, she recognized the view from the central hospital. Definitely her home village, but some sections of the city were bright where she didn't remember there being any activity. She was on what she guessed to be the seventh floor and inside a doctor's office. There was a desk and filing cabinets, wall cabinets, a couch under the window, a plush leather chair, personal decorations and accolades. The paper displayed proudly on the wall had the civilian medical doctorate program listed and under that, her name. Sakura ran her hand over the glass framing and shook her head. That was wrong.

The photos hanging on the wall had people in them and she was there, too, her hair sticking out prominently against the other subjects. Her eyes were out of focus as she tried to determine who was posing with her in the photos. She looked like she had been pasted in late, completely incongruous.

She was about to take a closer look at a photo of a group shot when the door to the room opened. Someone knocked as they entered, and the gesture felt more out of habit than one seeking permission.

Sakura frowned.

"Still here, I see," the person said, tone teasingly disapproving around a gentle expression.

Uchiha Itachi was in plain clothes. That was the most noticeable thing – followed shortly by _Uchiha Itachi was in the same room as her._

He was an enemy shinobi. He was dangerous.

No one had ever thought she, small time medic-nin of innominate clan background, would ever need to know how to fight a Sharingan user like Uchiha Itachi. So maybe Sakura overreacted when she punched the floor out from beneath the two of them.

Her fist hit the tile and she felt the impact, she thought, and she should have felt the rumble of destruction but it never came.

She blinked and she was staring at the clock on the wall.

o

Sakura opened her eyes.

She saw first that there was a clock on the wall. Analog type with a black face, white minute and hour hands, and a bright red seconds hand. The time read forty minutes and sixteen seconds past one in the morning.

She was by herself in an office. The interior lights were on and for a second she studied her reflection in the window on the far wall before refocusing to the village lights beyond. Konohagakure. There were too many lights on, she thought, for a village that was still rebuilding after the Sound-Sand invasion from a few years ago. It was too bright.

The view told her she was in the central hospital, on an upper floor. She guessed the seventh. On the wall were photos and accolades and she saw her name scrawled across the framed graduation paper. She frowned at the program name for the civilian medical doctorate. That wasn't right. She never took part in that program.

The photos, too, were off. She was in many of them, but the people around her were all wrong. She picked up a frame to try and recognise the blurry faces. A knock came from the door and she turned from the task, distracted.

The person let themself in and quietly shut the door for privacy.

"Here you are," Itachi said, pleased to find her.

Sakura felt her throat tighten.

That was _not_...normal. But she was slow to admit as much to herself as she watched him cross the room to meet her. Amenable and casual, like he had done the movements a hundred times before.

Sakura stepped back. "No, this isn't right."

He wasn't supposed to be in Konoha.

"We were supposed to meet. You forgot again," Itachi said. He reached for her shoulders, too familiarly and with sympathy she didn't want, and she immediately jerked away from him. He hushed her and when he reached for her again she struck out to punch him.

Her hand was light and he caught the swing with a surprised and yielding grip, apparently bemused by her action. He glanced between her eyes and her arm, and she did the same, terrified.

It was almost enough to make her curl inwards as her stomach dropped to her knees. The floor rose up to meet her, but Itachi's grip on her kept Sakura upright. She stared at where they met. In his hand, her hand was dainty and sweetly feminine. Her nails were delicately painted, a decorative bracelet wrapped her wrist, no calluses from weapon usage or old scars. Civilian and pampered and _weak_.

She rasped out, dry with disbelief, "wh– _where's my strength?_ "

Where was her chakra? Where was – she couldn't feel anything from her inner coils and chakra network – where was her damn clout and _muscle?_

"Sakura, calm yourself. You're a healer, not a fighter." Itachi sounded worried. His face was plain with concern around his bemused smile and she felt she'd gone mad as she looked to him. He said, and he was both soothing and patient, "it has been a long night."

"No, no. This is wrong –" They shouldn't be in an office together. Not like this. She was a kunoichi and he was holding her captive and _something was wrong_ –

Sakura opened her eyes.

On the clock, the time read forty minutes, seventeen seconds past one.

o

It was a quarter after three in the morning. Sakura was in an office at the hospital, standing at the window that overlooked the village. Her eyes were on her reflection in the glass, watching as her hands ran over hair that was too long, and then over the crisp fabric of a civilian medical uniform that suited her in a way she thought she remembered, but didn't really.

Her name was on the certificate on the wall. She had files with her signatures on the desk. She saw herself in photos she almost recognised, but they were all wrong. She barely knew any other faces, except for one. It was wrong, seeing herself in a picture with _him._

When she looked to the door, she was expecting the knock that followed shortly. And then the man from the pictures was letting himself in and something like dread slipped down her spine. She twisted fully to face him, questions crashing against her teeth but her jaw was shut tight with apprehension.

"You're still here," Itachi said. Gentle and with a hint of teasing, "another long night."

Her fist tightened reflexively and she reluctantly loosened her fingers and relaxed her tenseness.

"What kind of game is this?" She asked. Sakura couldn't feel her chakra pathways and reserves. She couldn't feel any weight of muscle to her. She was soft and light. The word powerless strangled her throat and made her jaw ache. "What the hell are you getting at putting me here like this?"

He ignored her questions like she hadn't spoken. "I've been waiting for you. Did you forget we were supposed to meet?"

She frowned, shook her head. Of course he would answer her question. She rubbed her temples, contemplative. She needed a way out. It wasn't a normal genjutsu.

"Sakura, you should reconsider taking time off. You deserve a moment to rest."

"Moment to rest?" She spat back at him, agitated.

For all her anger, he was placid. He looked so plain in the office, like her. Plain clothes, tasteful and boring, and completely normal.

"The tests went well. You've done everything you can for now. We can breathe," he was smiling, reassuring. He emphasized with a bashful gratitude, " _I can breathe_. And I have only you to thank for that."

"What?" _What_ from her tongue like a lashing. She side stepped from him, legs unsteady. "I would never do anything to help you. What are you even implying? I've _never_ helped you _."_

"If not for you, I would be dead."

"You _should_ be dead," Sakura told him.

 _She would never heal him._ _She would never. She would never_. _She would never_...

o

It was morning, bright and clear. The window in the office was open and the air that came inside was a young type of warmth with pollen on its breeze. Springtime. The village was lively and pristine. Flourishing, if she could pick a word.

Her eyes were on the stretch of the Hokage monument, settled on the face of the Fourth Hokage if only because there wasn't a carving to honour the Fifth to keep her attention.

A man came into the office. Itachi. He walked over to her, handing her a hot drink while sipping at his own. She numbly accepted the offering and spun the cup slowly in her hands.

"You've been here all night," he said.

Sakura nodded. She had been in the office for too long, she thought. Everything was off, somehow.

Patiently and with a small, indulging smile at her quiet reservation, he said, "my tests went well. Didn't you want to celebrate?"

She finally looked away from the monument to his face. His eyes were dark and happy to study her as she stared up at him, frowning. "Celebrate?"

"For the moment, I'm healed. You _healed_ me. You can step away from the office for a little while. I am certain we will both survive." He was almost playful as he spoke. Happy.

"No." Shaking her head. " _No,_ I'm not here for...I didn't _do_ _that._ "

He placed his drink on the window sill and leaned towards her. It was invasive, she thought, but she didn't pull back from him.

Until he reached for her face and she slapped his hand away.

She didn't heal Itachi from anything. She hadn't.

o

The sun was high and it was midday. Sakura took her eyes from the clock on the wall and glanced between the window and the door. She was expecting someone.

When Itachi entered, her heart beat hard in her chest and she took a shallow breath meant to steady her nerves, but she seemed to empty with it.

A question was on her lips, " _why?_ "

But he cut her off before the thought could mature much further.

"You're still here," he pointed out, playfully reprimanding. "I thought we had agreed to meet?"

"We were meeting?"

"To celebrate." He had flowers in his hands and she found them distracting. Unusual. Unlike him because this wasn't him at all. Itachi noticed where her eyes rested and smiled. "Courtesy of our favourite flower family. They've always thought so highly of you."

"Those are from –?"

"They're to congratulate you. _Us_." He spoke over her. "You healed me when no one else could."

"I didn't heal you," Sakura insisted. "You're not sick."

"Not any more because of you. I wish you were not so modest. I would be dead if it were not for you." When she didn't agree with him, he raised his eyebrows and gave her an indulgent smile. "Maybe you can listen for yourself?"

Sakura was stiff as he moved closer to her, his hands finding her upper arms. He pulled her to his chest and her own thumping pulse drowned out the sounds of his steady breathing and heartbeat. His hold was light and not at all insistent and _it wasn't right_.

She pushed hard and faltered. She had to leave –

o

She couldn't have healed him.

She could have, though. A part of her _was_ a healer. Something like that? But it didn't sound right.

A healer. _A healer._

o

"I did this?" She asked Itachi, uncertain and curious. The thought worried her.

"Of course."

Hearing that made her worry a little less.

o

"And how are you with added physical strain?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"I breathe more easily, every day, because of you." He was sure and steady and close to her. "Listen for yourself."

Sakura didn't pull away. She had healed him and it sounded wrong, but so familiar. More familiar than wrong.

o

She had healed him and he lauded her work. Sakura had healed him and it made her eyes wet.

He wiped the moisture from her face and told her to be happy. Itachi was slow to take his hand away, but then he was closer to her. He said, "you are not sad, Sakura. Do not be upset."

She was scared, maybe.

"I'm not sad," she said, but her voice shook with nerves. Excited agitation.

o

"You are still here," Itachi greeted. "Always dissatisfied with your work."

"I'm not dissatisfied," she defended herself. Sakura fixed people, it was her job. No, she _healed_ people. She healed Itachi.

"Then step away from your work for the evening. Celebrate with me?"

Sakura hesitated. His hand sought hers and his grip was gentle and enticing, begging her back to him.

"You did well, Sakura," he said, and it was hard for her to swallow suddenly. Heat on her face and her ears were warm from a beating pulse.

 _Nerves_ , she thought. He had the ability to make her flush with excitement.

A good kind of happy excitement.

He gave it and took it from her and she thought it wasn't right –

o

She liked it when he thanked her. To an extent. But then it felt familiar, too. He felt familiar to her, like she must have known him many times before.

She must have.

"You feel good," he told her.

No, she thought. Not always.

o

It was normal, she started to think. He was gentle and present, and artfully, effortlessly persistent. She almost protested, and then she didn't. And then she hushed herself and her thoughts.

But not entirely.

o

They had moved to her desk and for a moment her view was undisturbed over his shoulders. Her attention caught on something long enough for Itachi to notice and pull away.

"We should go there again," he said, following where her gaze had gone to a photo on her shelves.

A portrait of the two of them. Winter and they were stood together under a pavilion in a quiet garden.

"I've looked at that photo thousands of times," she said, admitting something aloud. Thousands and _thousands and thousands..._

"It is a beautiful picture," Itachi agreed.

It was _something,_ she thought.

He returned to his previous attentions and she reluctantly allowed him. Followed him.

But there was something wrong, still.

o

The clock on the wall was ticking away and it was well into the evening. Sakura looked out the window, let her eyes take in the blissful scene as lights turned on with the setting sun, and then she was glancing to the door, expecting the knock that followed shortly.

"I know I'm late," she said before Itachi could reprimand her.

He came into the office and matched her sheepish smile with his own. He was dressed smartly and carrying flowers. A picture of sweetness.

"Not too late to celebrate your success," he told her.

"And your health." Sakura leaned her chin up as he approached her. He had flowers in his hands but she put them aside in favour of returning his warm embrace. It made her heart flutter and her chest cool with a nervous apprehension that she hushed away. The movement felt natural and expected.

"To the best healer in the village," he said. "And to the woman who has found my heart in the mess that was my illness."

"Does everyone know what a complete cornball you are?" She asked him.

"It is becoming less of a secret these days. I find my face is not accustomed to the smiling I now do in your presence, or merely when I think of you."

"Such excessive flattery."

"If it serves to lighten your heart, then I cannot express any regrets for my saccharine admirations."

It did 'lighten her heart,' she thought. There was something addictive about acknowledgment and unabashed praise. She was special to him and it caught a tinder in her heart long shushed and hidden. The fire was welcomed and she relished in it.

Almost, almost because there was something she was forgetting.

Itachi kissed her with idle abandon. He moved her with ease, bent her and stirred her with control and little apparent thought for his efforts. Above her and consuming her and all she felt was from him and for him.

They were on the desk and she was staring at a photo.

It should have been of the two of them, a winter scene together, and she saw instead a different pair. Sakura and a woman, older and more mature, a mentor and her leader. Lady Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, her master and Sakura was a _kunoichi_ –

– _And this was wrong_ –

Sakura opened her eyes. She was in an office and there was a clock on the wall, red, white, and black in colour.

o o o

Itachi was heavy and slow with exhaustion. He barely maintained his straight posture while seated at the table in what would be a library or study for the base. Deidara had dropped him there, unceremoniously, and Itachi hadn't done more than shift his position since. The only exceptions were his coughing fits, which had calmed eventually.

Kisame was with him and Deidara had left to pursue his own entertainment elsewhere.

"She'll need her seals redone for hydration soon," Kisame said. He distractedly pushed a piece across the board on the table between them. He was a natural player and Itachi enjoyed their matches. He asked, slyly, "how's that illusion you set up for the little woman?"

Itachi kept his face blank. The illusion was his own private retreat for particularly sad nights; one where there was peace in his country and village, where he wasn't shackled to shinobi or clan duties, and a world in which he had a woman he loved and who loved him in turn. She lived and he _lived._ His fantasy in which he was healed and young and unencumbered. It might have been his dream of heaven.

Shamefully.

A younger him might have visited more often and in recent years he had found the ideal to be pandering and pathetic. Thoughts on it were quickly cut short in favour of responding to actual demands. For the most part.

There was no need for Itachi to tell Kisame the full truth of the genjutsu in which he had placed the girl, but the man had been toeing around the topic for half an hour and wanted to know something at least.

He said, "I had her in my Tsukuyomi. The two of us, alone, with time enough to get acquainted. To calm her, tame her, bring her to my side."

"Shit. Only your company, huh? For how long? A thousand years?" Kisame was sneering, humorous and exaggerating. Then, thinking more realistically, he said, "a week or something?"

Itachi said flatly, "it might be equivalent to several months or a year. Two? It is difficult to pinpoint exactly."

That was _too_ much time, apparently.

" _Shit_ ," Kisame repeated more emphatically. He contorted his face, a beat of disgust on his features. "You trapped her in hell."

"I would think not," Itachi said. The genjutsu he had made for her was a merciful means of persuasion. He had been much more strict and unrelenting with Sasuke. He clarified, "she would have been handled gently."

"For a girl who tried to kill me with a punch to my spine, I don't think she'll see _gentle_ the same way as you." Kisame snorted, amused again by something Itachi couldn't fathom. He said, under his breath and perfectly comprehensibly, "you've got learning to do, kid."

Surely, it had not been hell for her.

o o o

She had a strong impulse to run, to push him off her and flee. She was too stiff, muscles seized with unrealised adrenaline, and she didn't move.

He sensed her hesitance all the same.

"Relax, Sakura, you have had a very long day. Leave your worries and restraints behind."

She hushed her protests and Itachi sealed them there inside her.

o o o

 **Author's Note:** This genjutsu is an ultimate nightmare. No control. Manipulation to the extreme. Dread and gas-lighting for company. I struggled posting it.


End file.
